Review: Summerfolk at the National turns Gorky sweary - it’s trying far too hard

Only the National Theatre could afford to put on a production on the epic scale of Summerfolk, and, with its vast cast and sumptuous sets, it almost inevitably makes for a magnificent spectacle.

The director Robert Hastie’s intention was to make Maxim Gorky’s tale of the doomed privileged classes gathering at their summer retreat in pre-revolutionary Russia as accessible as possible, but I wonder if Nina Raine and Moses Raine haven’t maybe gone a little too far in their adaptation with the use of four-letter words and modern buzz words.

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It’s an interesting philosophical point – should culture always be made this accessible? Isn’t the whole point of it to get us to raise our eyes upwards and make us think for ourselves, or is that now regarded as too snobby a thought to entertain?

Still, I don’t dispute there are some superb actors up on the stage, but the sheer number of them means it’s difficult to focus on their individual plights. After a while, it all becomes a rather dreamlike blur.

Still, top marks to Peter McKintosh for his set design, Paul Pyant for his excellent lighting, and, in terms of the cast, that inveterate scene-stealer Sid Sagar deserves a mention in dispatches for his entertaining turn as an exasperated doctor.

I don’t see any particular contemporary message – no reason for putting this particular production on right now – and given the enormous amount of effort that must have gone into it, it seems to me a remarkably short run.

Still, it’s entertaining for all that, and, given it’s almost three hours long, the time passes quickly and convivially enough, even if it doesn’t linger long in the memory.

Summerfolk runs at the National Theatre in London until April 29